A few things really stood out to me. WARNING LONG POST!
Perhaps some of it is speculation on my part, but I thought that the episode gave glimpses of insight into the direction that Disney wants to take with force-abilities. Correct me if I'm wrong but I noticed a few things from this episode that almost seemed like a teaser of sorts for what we can expect in the future. For one, Canaan using the force to pick up Ezra from that ridiculously long drop towards the beginning of the episode shows me that the writers of this show, and perhaps Disney on a larger scale, are willing to be fairly liberal with the potential of force-abilities. I thought this was further supported as I watched Canaan fighting throughout the episode. He is able to pretty much use the force at will to effortlessly throw storm troopers around, going as far as using force telekinesis to rip blasters out from their arms. What's also important to note however is the seeming state of exhaustion that perpetually accompanies more labor-intensive force abilities, especially when performed for extended periods of time. We see this both when Canaan rescues Ezra from the fall, and briefly after pinning the Inquisitor to the ceiling for short while.
I think this bodes well for the consistency in defining what the force can and can't do in future canon releases. If such is the case, I think we have much to be excited about as I definitely remember that one major knock against Star Wars content was the fact that there are so many situations within the films in particular, where certain situations could have more efficiently/effectively been resolved with force abilities that should DEFINITELY have been viable given what we had seen before within the canon.
Moving on, the inclusion of Master Luminara Unduli shows that the empire has much more character than we had known until this point. In the past, the image of the empire looked like something along the lines of: Evil Emperor Palpatine, Mr. Vader, Moff Tarkin, and then an endless bunch of idiots. Here in Rebels we see a much more cunning and sophisticated empire, capable of shrewdly luring remnant Jedi and the like, in efforts to fulfill the completion of their demise. We also get a subtle yet clear first hand account of Empire Propaganda from the "holovision" (or whatever that thing is called). If TCW effectively breathed life into the character of the Republic aside from the image of the main characters from the films, then Rebels has so far begun filling out a similar canvas for the Empire.
Lightsabers! The hints about lightsabers were definitely subtle, but at least in my opinion this episode alone brought so much more character and life into the concept of the legendary weapons. To start, we learn that at least in the case of Canaan's weapon, you can manipulate the length of the blade to better match your relative height. The Inquisitor's blade is definitely interesting as it has a special hilt, has a saber-staff option, and also turns into a spinning axe of sorts (i'm sorry i know it's not an axe but the closest thing I can think of is Draven's spinning axes from League of Legends). These two weapons alone give so much more life and character into these weapons than what we've seen in the past. It may also be indicative of further creative additions into lightsaber customizations in the future. The Inquisitor's mocking remarks about Canaan's over-reliance on the Form I fighting style were some of the most important pieces of dialogue from the episode in my opinion. This is (hopeful) speculation on my part, but perhaps this is indicative of Disney taking a more sophisticated approach to lightsaber fighting, not only in animating the fight scenes themselves, but also by intricately developing the lore and portraying the respective history and characteristics of each fighting style and even the different weapons.
Of course much of this is simply my personal speculation, but I definitely feel more hopeful about this series after this episode compared to the first three to say the least. As long as these ideals remain consistent, the future is looking bright. Perhaps there is a new hope (don't kill me) for the future of this franchise.
TL;DR: episode 4 was great. may be indicative of more consistent and sophisticated writing in future releases (Rebels, future films, games, etc.)
enjoyed how they portrayed force abilities, fleshed out characteristics of the empire, light sabers and the fighting styles.
Submitted November 02, 2014 at 02:23AM by relentless_child http://ift.tt/1qjWqLW
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